soccer

Having bought/borrowed PC FIFA games since '99, I say that the 2004 incarnation is the closest to the real thing. From the graphics to the gameplay. Players look, behave and play like their real-life counterparts. As one other reviewer wrote, it's like watching TV. True, it may be not as fun as other soccer games because it's hard to pull off those spectacular moves but very players can pull off those bicycle kicks, curving passes and goal-scoring headers with regularity. To fully appreciate and exploit the game, you must know the players' strengths and weaknesses, which the game faithfully represents. I managed to beat Real Madrid using the souped-up Chelsea squad via juggling the lineup and putting stronger defenders against the Los Galacticos. However, despite being a faithful simulation of the beautiful game, I am bothered by several things that prevent it from being, well, a beautiful game.

First, the controls. I understand that this game fully utilizes the analog stick of console systems. However, I'm playing the PC version using an ordinary gamepad and I cannot fully use the off-the-ball feature and can't perfect the free kicks and penalty kicks. Up to now, I can't bend it like Beckham. Another is the menu. It's very hard to navigate, much more cluttered than 2003. But the biggest beef about FIFA 2004, is the omission of a lot of teams, most notably, the Dutch national team. Yes, they didn't qualify for the World Cup 2002 but I want to see guys like Van Nistelrooy, Kluivert, Makaay, Davids, Overmars, Bergkampf and company play together. How can I simulate Euro 2004 without them? They managed to put in lower division teams of the major Euro leagues but neglected to put in the J-League and Champions League qualifiers like Lokomotiv Moscow. If there's a patch for the missing teams, let me know.

All in all, it's a worthy buy.

Fifa 2004 is a soccer/football game that is moving in the right direction. Its gameplay has moved away from the arcady feel of previous versions, and is now a pretty accurate representation of real-life soccer. The depth of the game is awesome, featuring a ton of leagues, teams, and players. The graphics are very good, continuing in the tradition of previous fifa games. And the new career mode enhances the replay/continual play value of the game.

However, Fifa 2004 is not without its faults, small and large. While the gameplay is more realistic than in previous years, it can become too static and frustrating. The new momentum and dribbling parameters create a realistic feel that prevent the game from resembling basketball more than soccer, but these same parameters can make controlling players physically and mentally tiresome. Much of the time it feels as if you're fighting against the controller in order to move players the way you want.

The single biggest drawback to this game, in my opinion, is the extremely poor menu design. I cannot stress enough how frustrating it is to try to navigate and organize these menus. I can't help thinking that this aspect of the game was ignored entirely. In fact, the menu design is so poor that it takes away much of the enjoyment of the career mode, where players are called upon to set up training regimes, make player deals, and assess team and player output--mostly through scrolling menus for statistics. If this part of the game design is improved for the next version of fifa, then this will most definately be a game to reckon with.

I own 2003 and 2002 and this is a disgrace for a good line of soccer games. The menu is horrid, the gameplay is so slow and way to complex to be any fun. Not very supportive of hardware and had to go to alot of trouble to get it to work. Does not work in DVD drives. No controller custom config. This game is so crapy I would not recomend it to anyone, and im considering writing EA because they usually put out a good product. Waste of 20 bucks